The contest awarded prizes in nine categories, and JSPA conference keynote speaker Ari Goldman choose the grand prize from among the winning entries. Hannah’s feature story, titled “When You’re the Child of a Rabbi, Who Are You?” had won in the category of Feature Reporting on Judaism or Jewish Religion.

It was selected by Ari Goldman, professor at Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism in New York, who was the keynote speaker at JSPA’s fifth annual conference and Shabbaton held at Beth Jacob Congregation in Beverly Hills Feb. 1 – 3. Mr. Goldman announced the award at the beginning of his address.

The categories were judged by JSPA board secretary Kathleen Neumeyer, retired adviser of the award-winning Harvard-Westlake Chronicle in Los Angeles, and certificates were presented by JSPA founding director Joelle Keene.

The winning story is about three Shalhevet students, a teacher and a former student whose fathers are rabbis, and how the expectations of their father’s communities affect their lives as teenagers and their developing identities. For example:

“‘If the preacher’s kid isn’t behaving in the way people would expect, there’s a little more of people whispering about that,’ said Judaic Studies teacher Rabbi Ari Schwarzberg, whose father Rabbi Ronald Schwarzberg was the leader of the shul where he grew up. ‘People are a little more surprised about that. And it’s not that they’re judging the rabbi or the family differently, but it’s more of a topic of discussion than if someone else is not going to shul, or not wearing a yarmulke.'”

As Grand Prize winner, Hannah will receive a recommendation for an internship at the local Jewish newspaper in her area, under the auspices of the American Jewish Press Association, JSPA’s co-sponsor.

Once I turned 13, my hair mushroomed out like the top of a nuclear bomb. It was not ordinarily curly – it was a Jewfro. My mother’s hair is the same, and so was her mother’s, and so was her mother’s. There has been a matrilineal line of thick, curly hair in my family, and yet, a stigma persists. In addition to the bump on my nose, my frizzy hair supplemented my list of features that did not follow Eurocentric beauty standards that I always saw as more attractive, though I never quite knew why.

Ms. Neumeyer divided the category News or Feature Reporting on Interreligious/Intercultural Issues into separate categories for news and features. Rebecca Weiss, Features Editor of The Lion’s Tale of Charles E. Smith Jewish Day School in Rockville, Md., won them both.

One of Rebecca Weiss’s two winning entries in reporting on interreligious/intercultural issues described a student’s summer in Jordan, where he learned to love ‘knafeh,’ a cheese pastry drenched in sweet syrup, here shown on the last day of his summer program.

“Don’t stand out,” Gershengorn recalled his instructor telling the students during the safety briefing at orientation. Although Gershengorn didn’t feel afraid to tell people he was American he found it was easier to avoid the topic as people would immediately ask about Trump.

The other was for From Poland with Poems, about a CESJDS student who lived in Poland for six months while her mother did research there.

Rebecca told the story of CESJDS junior Selah Bickel, then a sophomore, who attended the American School of Warsaw and was surprised by its lack of diversity.

While on one of their outings, Bickel met a 19-year-old Polish girl who had found out she was Jewish only two years earlier. The girl was brimming with enthusiasm about her newfound identity.

“It was so cute because, for me, it’s never been like ‘oh my God, it’s so cool [to be Jewish],’” Bickel said.

The Lion’s Tale also won the most prizes overall. In addition to the two intercultural categories, it took first place in Ongoing Reporting on Religious, Israel or Interreligious/Intercultural Issues; in News; and in Layout of any Jewish- or Israel-related story.

Isaac Silber and Rina Torchinsky, The Lion’s Tale managing editor and editor-in-chief, respectively, won in news for their report titled Even in face of tragedy, chain remains unbroken, about the aftermath of a student’s sudden death in May 2017. The story described how the school remembered the student partly through Jewish mourning rituals though it concluded with a school counselor’s observation that “Grief never goes away,” Cannon said. “You learn to live with it. You absorb it being part of you, and it shapes you.”

And Aliza Bard and Aliza Rabinovitz of CESJDS won first prize in the layout category for “Under One Roof,” illustrating a story about religious pluralism.

The Boiling Point came in second with four prizes — three first and one second, in addition to the Grand Prize. And The Roar of Milken Community High School in Los Angeles came in third with three — two first and one second prize. This year was the first time second-place prizes had been awarded.

The Boiling Point’s other winners were in the video category, where Talia Abel and Jordana Glouberman won first prize for their 4.5-minute report on a trip of the school’s 11th grade to Houston to help in clean-up efforts after Hurricane Harvey; and photojournalism, where Katia Surpin took second place for her photo of a student wearing a protective mask while helping dismantle a flood-damaged home.

Alexandra Orbuch of the Roar won first prize in the current events category for Milken Torah Comes Home, about preserving the school’s Torah scroll when the campus was threatened by the Skirball fire last December.

That day, a gratitude town meeting took place, during which the Milken Torah was rededicated. Rabbi Gordon Bernat-Kunin entered the gymnasium, carrying the Torah, while the entire school sang Oseh Shalom together. According to Rabbi David Saiger, “We chose that particular prayer because shalom, in addition to meaning peace, means “whole” or “complete.” The return of students and the return of Torah completes our community, makes it whole, so we thanked God for allowing us to become shalem, whole, again.”

The Roar also took First Place in photojournalism, for a photo by Jordan Pardo that accompanied a story on redefining Zionism, and second place in Ongoing Reporting for its coverage of Milken’s dropping of its Hebrew language requirement this year by Roar Editor-in-Chief Mira Berenbaum and staff writer Jared Hasen-Klein.

Founded in 2013, the Jewish Scholastic Press Association (JSPA) is a national journalism education organization that works to improve student media at Jewish high schools, enhance journalism education in those schools, and teach students and advisers how they can add Jewish content and sensibility to their publications. It is co-sponsored by the American Jewish Press Association and Shalhevet High School.

It holds an annual conference where students learn from distinguished journalists, educators, attorneys, rabbis and public figures. More information on JSPA can be found here and here. For questions, please contact Joelle Keene at 323 930-9333.

A total of 14 first- and second-place awards were chosen from among 53 entries in nine categories from six different schools, and the Grand Prize was chosen from among the category winners.

The contest was judged by JSPA Board Secretary Kathleen Neumeyer, national award-winning journalism teacher who advised the Chronicle at Harvard-Westlake School in Los Angeles for 24 years.

The Grand Prize was chosen from among the category winners, and judged by Ari Goldman, professor at Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism, former New York Times religion writer and best-selling author. Prof. Goldman was the keynote speaker at this year’s conference.

Katia Surpin, The Boiling Point This photo of Shalhevet junior Eliana Cohen helping dismantle a flooded house in Houston after Hurricane Harvey. This photo won 2nd place in the category Photojournalism: Photograph attached to any Jewish or Israel-related story

Even though neither print, web nor cable news existed when it was written down, there’s nothing that our holy Torah did not envision and address, however indirectly. Learn what Jewish ethics have to say about the most modern of media, and how to evaluate journalism dilemmas through a lens of Jewish thought. Bayer Hall

Session 2

10:30 – 11: 15 Conference-wide Address

Does #metoo mean you too? Covering (or not covering) harassment in high school

Kathleen Neumeyer, Former Head of Upper School Publications, Harvard-Westlake School, Los Angeles

What’s the first thing you should do when someone brings a charge of sexual harassment or other misconduct to the attention of your school news media? What should and shouldn’t be reported? What legal issues are involved? And how can you decide whether staying away from the story is fair or is allowing misconduct to continue? Kathleen Neumeyer, former Head of Upper School publications at Harvard-Westlake school in Los Angeles, will offer a template for how to handle sexual harassment and other allegations, sharing examples from the past as well as guidelines being published by journalism think tanks today. Bayer Hall

Session 3

11:30 – 12:15 Choice of Two Workshops

Covering Israel and Jewish Issues in College News Media

Zev Hurwitz, UCLA

As Israel issues and anti-Semitism become ever more newsworthy on campus, college newspapers can help explain the issues, but student journalists covering these topics have been accused of bias and often face conflicting interests. Learn how to write the stories, how to avoid bias, and how to know when to recuse yourself from an assignment.

Principles of Design

Jessica Nassau, Charles E. Smith Jewish Day School, Rockville, Md.

No matter what section you’re designing, there are certain fundamentals of design that you need to follow. From fonts to headlines, dominance to harmony, this session will cover all the basics of page layout. Bayer Hall

12:15 – 2 p.m. Lunch on Pico

Session 4

2 – 2:45 Choice of Two Workshops

Writing About Jewish Values in 21st-Century Media

Professor Michael (Avi) Helfand, Pepperdine University School of LawDr. Michael (Avi) Helfand, an important legal thinker on issues of religious liberty and responsibility, will share some of his experiences writing for mainstream news media about questions of religious freedom and Jewish values. What are some of today’s challenges when bringing the complex lessons of Jewish identity and values to an increasingly polarized audience? And how can journalists and authors meet those challenges in the work that they do?

The Big Picture: Designing a Cover or Double-truck

Jessica Nassau, Charles E. Smith Jewish Day School, Rockville, Md.

There are some sections of your paper where you really want to make an impact. In this session, we’ll talk about how to come up with simple but clever visual metaphors that intrigue your readers – and pull them into your stories. Bayer Hall

Session 5

3 – 3:45 Choice of Two Workshops

How To Get Away With Journalism: Copyright In The News Media

David Nimmer, Irell and Manella LLP

From photographs to quotations to music, journalists use a wide variety of sources in their work, and some of these sources may be protected by copyright. A good journalist needs to know how to cite, quote or show copyrighted material without infringing. We’ll learn what exactly a copyright is and what it prohibits journalists from doing, using examples from real-life copyright cases. And we’ll explore the things journalists need to consider before using someone else’s work without permission,including the famous “fair use” defense.

Tales from Journalism’s Cutting Edge

Hannah Jannol, Hila Machmali, Gilad Spitzer, Shalhevet Boiling Point

From push notifications to basketball broadcasts, nothing puts you in your readers’ pockets like a news app and/or a frequently updated website. Editors of the national award-winning Boiling Point will describe how they manage staff roles, work flow, mistakes, tech updates, social media and more, along with the all-important interface between web publication and the print paper. Bayer Hall

Session 6

4 – 4:45 Choice of Two Workshops

Summer forever

Julie Gruenbaum Fax, journalist and memoirist

Summer goes by so quickly but often your experiences on vacation, at camp, or in other unique environments make create life-changing impressions that you want to share with others. How can you frame your experience so that it imparts meaning to others without sounding clichéd and boring? What awareness and techniques to do you need while you are going through the experience? Ms. Fax, who spent two decades as a journalist and now co-authors people’s memoirs, will provide answers and suggestions, and tell you how to get started even before summer begins.

From maintaining a look to starting fresh, Chronicle Co-Editors-in-Chief Danielle Spitz and Josie Abugov, along with Managing Editor Alena Rubin and Presentations Editor Nicole Kim, will share how they design the overall look as well as individual pages of their school’s four-section paper. Alena and Nicole recently launched a new school features magazine called Panorama and will also share insights on how to design a new publication from scratch. Bayer Hall

The Los Angeles Times has some of the finest arts and film critics in the nation, and their writing has the capacity to deepen our understanding of today’s world across many forms of expression. But with popular websites offering everyone a voice on social media, do readers still want critics’ expertise? Mr. Nordwind will lead a discussion about what role they should play, what readers would lose without them, and how students can learn to write about culture in a way that has value in the internet age.

Close to Home: Covering Your Own Community

Julie Gruenbaum Fax, journalist and memoirist

Writing about the people you know and love is one of the toughest challenges in all of journalism, and high school journalists do this every day. Shalhevet parent Julie Fax, who has covered Los Angeles’ Jewish community — including Shalhevet — for more than 15 years, will share war stories from the front and offer suggestions for how to write and think about the news that’s closest to home.

Session 9

10 – 10:45 Conference-wide address, Bayer Hall

Journalism Goes to the Movies

Shira Dicker, writer and blogger

Writer and cultural critic Shira Dicker pioneered this course at the School of the New York Times in New York and brings a snippet of it to JSPA, focusing on The Post, Spotlight and other films that share journalism’s inner workings with the masses, for better or for worse. Bayer Hall

Session 10

11 – 11:45 Choice of Two Workshops

Sports Reporting in the World of New Media

Eric Nusbaum, ViceSports.com

Like all news gathering, sports journalism is in flux, with live streaming services and social media challenging the role of sports writers whether in pro sports or at school. But the best sports coverage goes beyond game reports. Vice Sports editor Eric Nusbaum will describe how he finds non-team sports stories, and where he thinks online media is going, commercially, journalistically and stylistically, in the coming decade.

Saving the Yazidis, and Other Case Studies in Public Service Journalism

Eitan Arom, Jewish Journal of Los Angeles

Can journalism save lives? The story of the Yazidis, a tiny religious minority in Iraq, suggests that it can. Unknown in the West until they suffered shocking violence and destruction – partly on live TV – at the hands of ISIS in 2014., the small number of Yazidi survivors in the U.S. came to the attention of the Jewish community in part because of the efforts of Eitan Arom, who wrote about them, advocated for them, and visited them in their far-flung communities in the United States. Learn how to make the newspaper a place to improve the world, even at a moment when journalism seems besieged and less powerful than in the past.

11:45 – 1 LUNCH ON PICO

Session 11

1 – 1:45 – 2 Choice of Two Workshops

Freedom of the Press in Religious High Schools

Joseph M. Lipner, Irell & Manella LLP

A primer on privacy, libel, censorship, student press shields, Hazelwood, FOIA and FERPA, including California’s pioneering Leonard Law, which grants to both public and private high schools allthe freedoms afforded the professional press except one: work that violates the religious tenets of a religious high school. How to navigate through conflicting laws and court cases — and what to do when you’re not sure what applies.

News photography for print and online

Kathleen Neumeyer, Former Head of Upper School Publications, Harvard-Westlake School, Los Angeles

Why shouldn’t news photos be posed? What’s the difference between the best picture and one that’s best for the story? When is it okay to use cellphone cameras, and what has to be done to a photo to make it work both online and in print? And what makes a picture newsworthy on its own? From shooting to cropping and from breaking news to environmental portraits, learn how to capture, transfer and publish pictures that enhance storytelling and make your pages look great. Bayer Hall

Session 12

2 – 2:45 Conference-wide Address

Covering disaster

Jennifer Medina, National Correspondent, The New York Times

No one ever expects a disaster, but when one happens, your news source becomes more important than ever. Ms. Medina, who in the past year alone has covered the Las Vegas massacre, fires in Los Angeles and Ventura, mudslides in Montecito and the Perris child torture discovery, will share her experiences and tell how to get the basic facts, how to know which facts you need, how to scour for important details and how to approach victims. law enforcement, first responders and survivors, whether on site or far away. Bayer Hall

SHABBAT AT BETH JACOB

FRIDAY NIGHT

Mincha and Kabbalat Shabbat: 4:30 pm

Dinner in Eisenstadt Beit Midrash

Keynote Address: Ari Goldman

SATURDAY

Shacharit at 9 a.m., Shapell Sanctuary

Followed by lunch in Eisenstadt Beit Midrash

Moral dilemma discussion led by Mrs. Joelle Keene

Announcement of Awards

CONFERENCE ADJOURNS

]]>https://jewishscholasticpress.org/1023/jspa-conference/complete-schedule-for-jspas-fifth-annual-convention-and-shabbaton/feed/0Ari Goldman, professor, author and expert on religion in media, will be keynote speaker at JSPA conference Feb. 1 – 3https://jewishscholasticpress.org/1003/jspa-conference/ari-goldman-author-professor-and-expert-on-religion-in-media-will-be-keynote-speaker-at-jspa-conference-feb-1-3/
https://jewishscholasticpress.org/1003/jspa-conference/ari-goldman-author-professor-and-expert-on-religion-in-media-will-be-keynote-speaker-at-jspa-conference-feb-1-3/#respondMon, 08 Jan 2018 04:21:08 +0000https://jewishscholasticpress.org/?p=1003Ari Goldman, best-selling author and an authority on news coverage of religion and spirituality, will headline the Fifth Annual Conference of the Jewish Scholastic Press Association, to be held Feb. 1 – 3 in Los Angeles.

Mr. Goldman is a professor in the Graduate School of Journalism at Columbia University, where he directs the Scripps Howard Program in Religion, Journalism and the Spiritual Life. He joined Columbia’s faculty in 1993 after 20 years at the New York Times, most of them covering religion.

At Columbia, students in Mr. Goldman’s “Covering Religion” class travel to religious centers around the world, and have visited Israel, India, Russia, Ukraine, Ireland, Italy and the West Bank. He also teaches a course called “The Journalism of Death and Dying.”

Mr. Goldman is also on the faculty of The School of the New York Times, which offers journalism and culture classes to high school students and adults in New York City. His course there is called “Writing the Big City: Covering New York.”

In 1991, Mr. Goldman published his first book, The Search for God at Harvard (1991), a chronicle of his year at Harvard Divinity School, where he was sent by the New York Times for a sabbatical to expand his knowledge. The book, which became a best-seller, describes his encounters with faiths ranging from Catholicism and Islam to Buddhism and African sacrificial cults, always viewed through the lens of his own Modern Orthodox upbringing and faith.

“From my life journey,” he writes near the book’s close, “I believe that traditional Judaism is large enough, compassionate enough, forgiving enough and tolerant enough to encompass the world.”

Mr. Goldman’s other books are Being Jewish: The Spiritual and Cultural Practice of Judaism Today (2006),Living a Year of Kaddish: A Memoir (2007), and The Late-Starters Orchestra (2014), about rediscovering a passion for the cello as an adult.

He contributes occasional articles to Slate, Salon, The Forward, The Washington Post, and the New York Jewish Week, in addition to the Times.

Mr. Goldman has served as scholar-in-residence at Yeshiva University’s Stern College for Women, as a Skirball Fellow at the Oxford Centre for Hebrew and Jewish Studies in England; and as Visiting Fulbright Professor at Hebrew University in Jerusalem. His academic degrees are from Yeshiva University, Columbia and Harvard, where he studied in the Divinity School for a year that became basis for his first book.

Also on the JSPA program this year will be Mr. Goldman’s wife, the journalist Shira Dicker, who will give a workshop Friday morning about Steven Spielberg’s new movie, The Post.

JSPA is a national journalism education organization that teaches students top-level skills while looking at journalism through a Jewish lens. Its goals are to improve student media at Jewish high schools, enhance journalism education in those schools, and teach students and advisers how they can add Jewish content and sensibility to their publications, and also to convey a Jewish outlook on journalism to students in any school.

It promotes these goals in a way that respects Jewish values and the Jewish calendar, in particular using Shabbat to create a journalistic cohort that can consider news gathering in a Jewish way. Its motto, found in Leviticus Chapter 19, verse 16, is You shall not go up and down as a talebearer among your people, neither shall you stand idly by the blood of your neighbor; I am the Lord. Applying this in journalism means using both courage and restraint, knowing when to use which, and being able to channel curiosity into purpose.

Co-sponsors of the conference are the American Jewish Press Association and Shalhevet High School. For more information, please contact Joelle Keene at j.keene@shalhevet.org.

SUBMISSION: All entries, including those published online, must be submitted as paper copies. Paper copies may be submitted in any format as long as they are legible. Attach a separate entry form to each entry.

LIMIT: There is a limit of three articles per category per school.

PAYMENT: Entries are $5 each. JSPA Member Individuals receive the first three entries free. Member Schools receive the first 20 entries free. Payment is by check only and must accompany the entries. We regret that we are not yet set up to accept credit cards or Paypal for contest entries. Please make checks payable to Jewish Scholastic Press Association.

ELIGIBILITY: Articles must have been published in an ongoing news publication in print or online from Jan. 1, 2017 through Dec. 31, 2017, by any current high school student. Work by June 2017 graduates is not eligible.

——————————————————————————————————–

PAYMENT WORKSHEET

A single Payment Worksheet should accompany multiple entries.

Name or School/Organization name ______________________________________

Address __________________________________________________________

E-mail Address _____________________________________________________

Member? Circle one: Yes No

Advisor name and e-mail address if applicable ________________________________________________________________

To join now, circle one:

School @ $150 – 20 free entries

Individual @ $20 – 3 free entries

————————————————————————————————————————-

INDIVIDUAL STORY, PHOTO OR DESIGN ENTRY FORM

Please send a separate Entry Form for each story, photo, layout or video. A single Payment Worksheet, below, should accompany multiple entries.

_____ Category 4: Ongoing reporting on religious, Israel or interreligious/intercultural issues. Ongoing reporting means at least two stories on two different days, covering a story that is evolving with additional facts known.

_____ Category 5: Opinion: Non-first-person opinion on any Jewish or Israel-related story

There must be a separate Entry Form for each story, photo, layout or video. A single Payment Worksheet should accompany multiple entries.

]]>https://jewishscholasticpress.org/987/contests/2018-jewish-scholastic-journalism-awards-entry-form-and-payment-worksheet/feed/0Online registration now open for JSPA 2018 Convention and Shabbaton in Los Angeleshttps://jewishscholasticpress.org/976/jspa-conference/online-registration-now-open-for-jspa-2018-convention-and-shabbaton-in-los-angeles/
https://jewishscholasticpress.org/976/jspa-conference/online-registration-now-open-for-jspa-2018-convention-and-shabbaton-in-los-angeles/#respondThu, 16 Nov 2017 08:23:41 +0000https://jewishscholasticpress.org/?p=976Registration is now open for the the 2018 Convention and Shabbaton of the Jewish Scholastic Press Association, set for Los Angeles Feb. 1 – 3, 2018, sponsored by Shalhevet High School and the American Jewish Press Association.

This year’s conference will be held at Beth Jacob Congregation in Beverly Hills.

The convention offers a full Shabbat program and also sponsors the annual Jewish Scholastic Journalism Awards for articles published on Jewish topics in the last year, with a $5-per-story contest entry fee. First-place winners in each category compete for the Grand Prize in Jewish Scholastic Journalism, the prize for which is a recommendation from AJPA for an internship at the Jewish newspaper in their home city.

Keynote speaker this year will be Ari Goldman, director of the Scripps Howard Program in Religion, Journalism and the Spiritual Life at Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism in New York. Mr. Goldman, who is the author of the best-selling book The Search for God at Harvard, was religion writer for the New York Times for 20 years before joining the faculty at Columbia, and is an active member of New York City’s Modern Orthodox community.

The Convention is held in Los Angeles’ Pico-Robertson neighborhood, walking distance to more than a dozen popular kosher restaurants and 15 or more synagogues of every denomination. Registration is $135 per student (there are early bird and member discounts) and includes Shabbat dinner and lunch.

Thanks to JSPA co-sponsor Shalhevet High School, home hospitality will be available to all out-of-town attendees. Hotel space is also available, at the Marriot Residence Inn Beverly Hills and the Carlyle Inn, both located walking distance from our meetings.

Groups sending more than three students must have a chaperone. Local students who want to get to meetings on their own are welcome to do so.

Students and teachers who have attended the national conferences of the National or Columbia scholastic press associations (NSPA and CSPA) know how tremendous the impact of young journalists traveling and thinking about journalism together for a few days can be. JSPA adds Jewish meaning and Torah wisdom to this formula, and helps students become news writers, designers, thinkers and leaders of tomorrow.

JSPA is a national journalism education organization that teaches students top-level skills while looking at journalism through a Jewish lens. Its goals are to improve student media at Jewish high schools, enhance journalism education in those schools, and teach students and advisers how they can add Jewish content and sensibility to their publications, and also to convey a Jewish outlook on journalism to students in any school.

It promotes these goals in a way that respects Jewish values and the Jewish calendar, in particular using Shabbat to create a journalistic cohort that can consider news gathering in a Jewish way. Its motto, found in Leviticus Chapter 19, verse 16, is You shall not go up and down as a talebearer among your people, neither shall you stand idly by the blood of your neighbor; I am the Lord. Applying this in journalism means using both courage and restraint, knowing when to use which, and being able to channel curiosity into purpose.

The Convention features workshops such as “How to Find News in the Torah”and “Covering Israel on College Campuses,”while also building professional skills with workshops on interview technique, copyright and free press issues, photojournalism and center-spread design. This year’s will be led by Jenny Medina, Los Angeles-based National Correspondent for the New York Times; Rabbi Kalman Topp of Beth Jacob Congregation in Beverly Hills; leading intellectual property attorneys David Nimmer and Joseph Lipner; Eric Nusbaum, West Coast Sports Editor for VICE Media; and Kathleen Neumeyer, formerly of Harvard-Westlake School, and many more.

For more information, please email j.keene@shalhevet.org, either to ask questions directly or to set up a time to speak by phone.

There are nine entry categories, and entry is open to high school students who don’t attend the conference as well as to those who do.

A first-place certificate will be awarded in each category by JSPA. A Grand Prize in Jewish Scholastic Journalism will then be selected from among the first-place winners. The winner will be awarded a personal recommendation from the American Jewish Press Association for an internship near the his or her home.

All winning entries will be published on the JSPA website.

Judging is led by Kathleen Neumeyer, a Dow Jones News Fund Distinguished Journalism Adviser and CSPA Gold Key recipient. Ms. Neumeyer advised the award-winning Harvard-Westlake Chronicle for more than 20 years and has written hundreds of newspaper and magazine articles, as staff writer for United Press International, contributing editor of Los Angeles Magazine, and freelancer for The Economist, the Los Angeles Times and many other national publications. She is also the author of Moral Uncertainty: Inside the Rodney King Juries.

Click here for contest rules, categories, eligibility and entrance forms. Entries must be received by Jan. 19, 2018. For further information, please e-mail Joelle Keene at j.keene@shalhevet.org.

Category 4: Ongoing reporting on religious, Israel or interreligious/intercultural issues. Ongoing reporting means at least two stories on two different days, covering a story that is evolving with additional facts known.

Category 5: Opinion: Non-first-person opinion on any Jewish or Israel-related story

Category 7: Photojournalism: Photograph attached to any Jewish or Israel-related story

Category 8: Layout/design of any Jewish or Israel-related story, one page or multiple pages

Category 9: Video reporting of any Jewish or Israel-related story

ELIGIBILITY: Articles must have been published in an ongoing news publication in print or online from Jan. 1, 2017 through Dec. 31, 2017, by any current high school student. Work by June 2017 graduates is not eligible.

SUBMISSION: All entries, including those published online, must be submitted as paper copies. Paper copies may be submitted in any format as long as they are legible. Attach a separate entry form to each entry.

LIMIT: There is a limit of three articles per category per school.

PAYMENT: Entries are $5 each. JSPA Member Individuals receive the first three entries free. Member Schools receive the first 20 entries free. Payment is by check only and must accompany the entries. We regret that we are not yet set up to accept credit cards or Paypal for contest entries. Please make checks payable to Jewish Scholastic Press Association.

]]>https://jewishscholasticpress.org/934/contests/announcing-the-2018-annual-scholastic-journalism-awards/feed/0The Gift of Freedomhttps://jewishscholasticpress.org/920/high-school-opinion/the-gift-of-freedom/
https://jewishscholasticpress.org/920/high-school-opinion/the-gift-of-freedom/#respondFri, 04 Aug 2017 16:15:40 +0000https://jewishscholasticpress.org/?p=920Today I woke up. Today I ate breakfast. Today I chose what to wear. Today I went to school. Today I did homework. Today I am free.

They didn’t know if they were going to wake up the next morning. They didn’t know if they were going to eat breakfast. They didn’t choose what to wear. They didn’t go to school. They did physical work. They were not free.

This is what I learned from talking to Ruth Birndorf: Ruth was in hiding during the Holocaust. Ruth never knew her next move, where she was going, what she was eating, and who she was going to be with. Although Ruth was not in the camps, she was still not free. Ruth now appreciates her freedom each and everyday, and so should we.

This is what I learned from talking to Eva Nathanson: Eva, too, was in hiding, but with Eva it resonated a little bit more. When I asked Eva where she wanted to sit, she told me she had to face the door because she needed to know there was a way to exit the room. Eva is now free, but still struggles to grasp the complexity of her freedom.

We come from a nation that has struggled. The Jewish people have overcome slavery, hate, mass murder– all of which have taken away our freedom as a nation. As Jews, we are obligated to remember this loss of freedom.

But I think it goes further. We remember the loss of freedom, but we never take the time to remind ourselves of our freedom. We all complain when we have three hours of homework. We all complain that we don’t have enough free time. But our education and our time are two of many luxuries that make us free.

We recently celebrated and commemorated the holidays of Pesach, Yom HaShoah, Yom HaZikaron and Yom Ha’atzmaut, all of which are holidays that stress the move from avdut(slavery) to cheirut (freedom). It is especially important now, during this season, to be grateful for our freedom, our ability to wake up, choose what to wear, what to eat, and what to do.

But we shouldn’t just focus on that concept at this time of year. Each and every day we must be grateful for our freedom because there are some people who were never free and still remain prisoners whether physically or mentally.

We say “never again” when we speak about the Holocaust, but there’s still genocide taking place today. As Jews, we have the responsibility to stand up for what we believe in. To help others before we help ourselves. Because we have that ability, the ability to be free. So take a moment today, and every day, to be grateful for the gift of freedom.

]]>https://jewishscholasticpress.org/920/high-school-opinion/the-gift-of-freedom/feed/0How my cross-country move changed me, but not my Jewish pride.https://jewishscholasticpress.org/917/high-school-opinion/how-my-cross-country-move-changed-me-but-not-my-jewish-pride/
https://jewishscholasticpress.org/917/high-school-opinion/how-my-cross-country-move-changed-me-but-not-my-jewish-pride/#respondThu, 06 Jul 2017 16:07:55 +0000https://jewishscholasticpress.org/?p=917I was born and raised in California, and it wasn’t until four years ago that I moved to the Washington, D.C., area. When I lived in California I knew I was Jewish, I went to a Jewish day school and went to shul semi-regularly, but looking back, I honestly didn’t feel a major connection. Sure, I was proud to be Jewish, and sure I knew some Hebrew, but I personally didn’t feel a connection between myself and Judaism.

That was before I turned 12.

Once I was 12, I began preparing for my bat mitzvah. I was ecstatic. I couldn’t wait to be counted as a full member of the Jewish community, to be counted in a minyan and wear a tallit. To me, it was an honor, a coming of age. At my shul in California, the rabbis required upcoming b’nai mitzvot to go to shul every Saturday for what they called Dovenor’s Clinic. We would meet in the wee hours of the morning (8 a.m.) and discuss a different topic every week. Then we would go into the main service and, as a class, lead the Shacharit service. It was a way of getting us used to leading the services as well as learning the prayers. Then we would go into a separate room and work with our tutor on whatever she had assigned us the previous week.

Every week I went, and every week I loved it. (OK, maybe I loved the cookies our tutor brought practically every week, but still.) I did this for a few months until, long story short, my parents informed my brother and me that Abba had gotten a job in D.C., and we’d be moving.

In the middle of my bat mitzvah training.

I had already learned my haftorah and was working on my Torah readings. Now I may have to start all over, at a new shul, with new people, for a completely different parasha!? Sorry, that just wasn’t going to happen. However, we moved, and began our shul shopping.

Every Shabbat morning, we would go to a different shul. We would discuss as a family the pros and cons of each (location, the rabbi and hazzan, the people, the color of the rugs, etc.). We would go back to a few that we thought were possibilities, and try those out again.

One snowy Shabbat morning, we went to yet another shul, Har Shalom, in Potomac, Md., just as we had been doing for the past month or so. When we walked in, we were shocked. The sanctuary was beautiful and wooden, and very open. The windows allowed in a lot of natural light, and it was beautiful to watch the snow fall as I recited the Amidah prayer. The scenery, however, is not what sticks with me to this day. What does, however, is what happened after — at kiddush.

I got my plate of bagel, cream cheese and lox, and sat down with my family. We didn’t know anyone, so just chose a random table. We talked with a few people who were nice and welcoming. Suddenly, someone walked up behind us, and was talking to us. He recognized that we were new, and wanted to come and introduce himself.

It was the rabbi. He had come over with his oldest daughter, who was about my age, and introduced us, so that I could have a friend. Then, the hazzan came and introduced himself and family, and soon we were laughing and talking as if we had been there since day one. It was really nice. My family and I were welcomed there, right away, and it is no doubt that we did end up joining the shul.

From the start, it was almost an immediate fit. I became very involved there, as well as in Har Shalom’s USY chapter. I volunteered on Sunday mornings as a madricha, and taught kids Hebrew. I frequently read Torah. I held several positions on various boards within USY. I even found an amazing Israeli dance troupe that I fell in love with.

Then one day, it hit me. I had found it. I had found my connection. I don’t know how long I had actually felt it before I realized it, but once I did, I knew it for sure. I felt the connection I had for so long been lacking to Judaism. I loved it. It felt so good, I practically smiled for days. The move to Maryland, and Har Shalom specifically, had allowed me to find that connection. For the first time, I would look forward to go going to shul to see my friends and shmooze. Joining Har Shalom, for me, was more than merely just joining a synagogue, it was an entirely new and wonderful community for me to be in.

Today, I am just as in love with Har Shalom as I was that first snowy morning we walked in. It has been a great change, and I can’t think of what my life would be had we not joined.

I am still reading Torah. I am still teaching Hebrew. I am still very involved in USY. I am still a member of that same Israeli dance troupe.

Most of all, however, I am still proud to be a Jew.

]]>https://jewishscholasticpress.org/917/high-school-opinion/how-my-cross-country-move-changed-me-but-not-my-jewish-pride/feed/0Kiddush clubs: Old tradition is scrutinized in a new wayhttps://jewishscholasticpress.org/906/high-school-news-and-features/kiddush-clubs-old-tradition-is-scrutinized-in-a-new-way/
https://jewishscholasticpress.org/906/high-school-news-and-features/kiddush-clubs-old-tradition-is-scrutinized-in-a-new-way/#respondThu, 06 Jul 2017 15:43:44 +0000https://jewishscholasticpress.org/?p=906

KOSHER: Above, A Jewish family shops for Shabbos wine at The Cask, a wine and liquor store on Pico Boulevard. (Photo by Gaby Benelyahu)

Local synagogues like Young Israel, Beth Jacob and B’nai David-Judea do not officially sanction Kiddush clubs, but like high school parties and kickbacks, they’re popular anyway.

Kiddush clubs are informal gatherings of congregants during or after shul to socialize, eat and drink alchohol.Some take place during the rabbi’s sermon or Haftorah reading, in between Shacharit and Musaf. Some meet in small rooms at the shuls, while others are at congregants’ homes.

A Jewish tradition of long enough standing to be described on Wikipedia – which says Kiddush clubs are “an informal group of Jewish adults who congregate after Shabbat (Sabbath) prayer services to make kiddush over wine or liquor, and socialize” — they are frequented by members of all three above-mentioned shuls, which together serve a majority of Shalhevet families.

Some congregants enjoy what they consider innocuous social gatherings, while others believe that the clubs promote drinking and send the wrong message to impressionable teenagers.

There’s evidence for both.

“It de-demonized drinking for me,” said junior Bennett Schneier. “I’d see on TV or my friends are telling me [drinking] is the worst thing in the world, but then I realize that it’s not necessarily the worst thing in the world.If you go to a Kiddush club and see a doctor or a lawyer have a l’chaim, it’s like saying you can have both.”

His fellow junior Alex Silberstein sees something else.

“I don’t think it encourages underage drinking, but you know, as an adult you have the right to drink,” said Alex. “I think it promotes drinking in the right way. It certainly doesn’t promote underage drinking.”

Adults are similarly divided. After a Simchat Torah night near-tragedy several years ago, community rabbis agreed that something more should be done to discourage youth drinking, and Kiddush clubs were one target.

“One kid almost lost his life from an overdose of alcohol on Simchat Torah night, drinking behind a shul,” said Rabbi Elazar Muskin of Young Israel of Century City (YICC). “So the rabbis got together after Simchat Torah and said enough is enough.”

Each rabbi chose a different approach. B’nai David, for example, banned in-shul drinking on both Simchat Torah and Purim.

Rabbi Muskin decided to ban Kiddush clubs.

“Do we want our kids to see our shuls being a place where, number one, you walk out in the middle of davening [prayer] to drink and to party? “ said Rabbi Muskin. “It’s incongruous to what we believe in.It is a terrible educational lesson for the kids to see this drinking.”

But some say Kiddush clubs can actually foster healthy attitudes toward drinking, and in the long run even prevent problems.

“If Kiddush club is going to be an opportunity to … behave appropriately, then children will see when they’re adults they can do that too,” said Principal Reb Noam Weissman. “I think that’s a fine thing.”

Adult atendees, of course, are over 21 and considered responsible enough to drink appropriately. They have a higher tolerance for alcohol and are less likely to make decisions with impaired judgement, due to their more mature brains.

At one Beverlywood Kiddush club, 30 to 40 community members – most of them YICC members — gather each week at a different house shortly after shul to make a l’chaim, or toast. Many of the participants, including Shalhevet parent Adam Reich, enjoy the time.

“It is an opportunity after services for everyone to get together to discuss their week, enjoy good banter, good food and the occasional l’chaim,” said Mr. Reich, father of Alex and Ben Reich.

Mr. Reich is confident his children know the difference between teens and adults.

“I believe my children clearly recognize that there is an age at which you can enjoy an alcoholic beverage,” said Mr. Reich.“And I’ve always tried to teach my kids that it can only be enjoyed once you’re at a certain age – the legal age – and thereafter as long as it is enjoyed responsibly.”

Both supporters and opponents of the clubs see them as primarily social.They differ on the side effects.

For Mordechai Fishman, a long-standing member of B’nai David Judea, the problem is leaving shul during prayer.

“Kiddush clubs are an abomination before God,” said Mr. Fishman, who is an uncle of freshman Jonathan Fishman. “One should be able to finish praying — and then drink, like a normal Jew.”

Shalhevet Head of School Rabbi Ari Segal thinks that parents who leave shul early to drink are setting a bad example.

“Kiddush after davening is probably the way to go,” said Rabbi Segal. “When teens see their parents ditching the speech and then muttering under their breath as they walk out, and then drinking three to four drinks and then coming back into davening tipsy, I think that’s probably not a good message to their kids.”

But Rabbi Segal does not see a problem with the Kiddush clubs otherwise.

“I think our teenagers see their parents drinking at Shabbat tables and see their parents drink socially and casually…and if its responsible and it’s done in a healthy way, I think there is nothing wrong with that,” said Rabbi Segal.

Rabbi Muskin, however, believes that the gatherings promote both under-age and excessive drinking. Several years ago YICC hosted a reformed alcoholic who worked at Beit T’Shuvah, a treatment center, who said that his drinking problem began at shul and other Jewish-related events.

“The speaker said, ‘If you don’t think that kids are watching, you’re wrong.’ And many kids learn how to drink at shuls and it’s just wrong,” said Rabbi Muskin.

Reb Weissman said he believes children do learn from watching their parents, and Kiddush clubs can teach good or bad behavior, depending on the circumstances.

“I am certain of the fact that every single thing that children see their parents do, they absorb,” said Reb Weissman.“They can often mimic what their parents do… With regards to drinking, I think it’s the exact same thing.

“I actually think if children see their parents drinking alcohol in a healthy way in a certain context in a certain environment and behaving a certain way, the impact they can have on their children is a very positive [one].”

B’nai David President Marnin Weinreb agreed.

“There’s always concern about people abusing anything or setting the wrong example,” said Mr. Weinreb, father of sophomore Avi Weinreb. “However…it’s important to set the right example for our youth and for everyone about how adults can behave, can have a drink in an appropriate manner with decorum.”

Others say Kiddush clubs are not problematic because the amount of drinking there is small.Students say they themselves actually drink at Kiddush clubs sometimes.

“Kiddush club is a nice opportunity to hang out with your friends in the backyard of the host’s house,” said Alex Silberstein. “To me, Kiddush club is harmless…Overall, it seems like an innocent thing and I enjoy it.”

“They’re having a little l’chaim with their dad,” said an upperclassman who asked to be anonymous. “It’s almost a ritualistic thing. You get to 17, 18 years old and you reach that age and its kind of symbolic.

“It’s never like the adults are passing kids shots and they’re getting hammered,” he continued. “No one gets drunk –meaning kids drink, but no one gets drunk.”

Nonetheless, alcohol is served and teenagers are present.Kehillat Yavneh in Hancock Park hosts two Kiddush clubs, and while teenagers cannot attend, they know alcohol is consumed.

“There’s a second kiddush club that’s also behind closed doors, but there’s a window, a big window, and you can see through it,” said junior Nicole Soussana.“If a kid or teenager passes by they can see what is going on inside there.”

Kiddush clubs are not officially permitted at B’nai David, but members sometimes gather during Haftorah to drink liquor, according to freshman Jonathan Fishman.

“They just go and talk and have a shot — there’s no big get-together,” said Jonathan.

Similarly, Beth Jacob does not have an official Kiddush club, but a group of people sometimes leaves shul early for food and drink.Beth Jacob Rabbi Kalman Topp said he understood the reason for the practice.

“If a group of people are coming on time and they are davening and listening to krias haTorah for the two hours, that’s an ideal, and I would tell them don’t leave shul for an extended time,” said Rabbi Topp in an interview.

“But if a group needed encouragement to come to shul or the extra time with friends makes the Shabbat experience more exciting, one could argue that it’s not a bad thing.”

He added that it’s not just the what, but the how.

“The drinking of any wine or alcohol needs to be done responsibly, minimally without glorifying it,” said Rabbi Topp. “And it’s certainly very important to do all we can to make the teenagers and children to not get the wrong idea about drinking, and I believe the Kiddush club, which has food and cholent and soda, follows these guidelines.”

For many students, Kiddush clubs have become a part of the regular Shabbat routine.

“It’s Shabbat, that’s what a dad does,” said sophomore Mendy Mentz.“I would go to shul and it would be totally a part of it.”

When Bennett Schneier moved from Philadelphia to Los Angeles, the Kiddush club became part of his Shabbos too.

“This is what you do to meet people,” said Bennett. “You go to shul and you have a l’chaim after…The conversation is always funny and I like to schmooze with people there and I like to hang out, talk to a couple people, catch up.”

Including alcohol is just how it’s always been, according to Mr. Reich.

“Typically, when you attended a kiddush you’re saying kiddush over wine and there would be some schnapps and some alcohol,” said Mr. Reich.“I don’t think it’s necessary, [but] I think it’s always been a part of the tradition.”

Alex Silberstein said the alcohol is necessary.

“Alcohol stimulates fun conversation so I hear it,” said Alex.

But Rabbi Muskin disagreed.

“When I was a kid it was not prevalent in shul – it wasn’t in my father’s shul,” said Rabbi Muskin.“When I was growing up there was an expression, a shikur [drunk] is a goy [non-Jew]. Jews don’t get drunk. That’s changed. Now we drink very expensive liquor.”